


Her fearful symmetry

by coffeeandoranges



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Angst, Clonecest?, F/F, Identity Issues, Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 12:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2109783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeandoranges/pseuds/coffeeandoranges
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's narcissism, and then there's... this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her fearful symmetry

_ i.                      _

 

There’s narcissism, and then there’s… this.

The first time Alison sees Beth Childs in person, aside from the “I am the law” swagger to her hips that Alison does not—can never—replicate, it’s like looking into a mirror. A cool, stylish mirror.

_Oh my god._

Alison adjusts her cardigan, but she doesn’t have to fake her smile.

Beth Childs: black dress, pearl earrings, and (thankfully) no dreadlocks. At least one of the clones had good taste.

The dress in particular piques her interest. As they hug, Alison gets a cramp in her neck from leaning over to check the label.

“Do I have the suburbia stamp of approval?” Beth says in greeting, and she laughs. Her chest shakes when she laughs, dispelling that momentarily perfect silhouette.

Alison refocuses her attention on the plan for the afternoon: they have about an hour and forty-five minutes. Alison is driving them to her house, where Donnie will be, mercifully, absent— he’s at the movies with the kids—and they can talk alone, completely unmonitored, in her basement.

“Is that Calvin Klein?” Alison asks, hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel.

“Did you know because you looked?”

Alison blushes. One hand leaps up to play with her ponytail.

“No,” she says.

“Got it because it goes with my gun.” Beth winks, patting the small of her back, a deceptively fragile curve where she must keep her pistol concealed.

“You brought a gun?”

“Not for you, don’t worry. You can always trust another clone. I just bring one everywhere these days.”

Her hand moves back to the steering wheel. “Oh.”

There are a lot of times when this—the clone thing—feels like a homework assignment Alison forgot to complete. There’s Cosima, the brilliant scientist who can look at their genomes or something, there’s Katja who found out she had “sisters” from the other side of the Atlantic, and then there’s Beth, the only one who can protect them. What does Alison bring to the table? What can she contribute?

She wishes that somehow, she could have studied a little harder for this phase in her life.

“We’re here,” she says, uncomfortable, pulling to a stop in front of her house.

Beth looks pleased, though, as she takes in the front door, the trimmed bushes, the square, green front lawn.

“Nice place,” she says. “Cute.”

 “Thank you,” Alison says, swinging the door wide. “Can I offer you anything?”

“A scotch, please.”

 _Okay then_.

When Alison hands her the drink, Beth drains half the glass in one movement.

“Thanks,” Beth says. Her posture slumps instantly, a gesture Alison recognizes like it was one of her own. It can only mean one thing: relief.

 _I don’t have to be in control anymore_.

“Can I offer you anything else?” Alison asks.

“No, thanks.”

Alison feels a little put out. She likes offering things to people, especially serious people like Beth. That’s her element, and where she felt— for the first time all afternoon— like she was on solid ground.

“Okay, just let me know.”

Beth is looking around the room, raising an eyebrow in a way that lends an amused air to her face. _Their_ face.

“This is a really nice basement,” she says, seriously. “Where did you get all this stuff?”

She points to the ironing board, stacked with four pairs of khakis, then to the ribbon rack and craft bin, where Alison keeps the ribbons she likes to put in her daughter’s hair. They are all lined up in color order.

“DeSerres,” says Alison. “Sometimes I order online too.”

“Wow.”

“It’s nothing,” says Alison quickly. “Silly, compared to what you do.”

“No, it’s not,” says Beth. She takes another sip of scotch and looks up at Alison. “You’re the only clone who’s married with kids. That I know of.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I even used to think it was some kind of genetic thing. That none of us were the kind of people who got to have the whole spouse, house, 2.5 kids deal.”

Alison bites her lip. “Guess I’m just different.”

“Not in a bad way,” says Beth. “It’s amazing how you manage to stay normal, even in the middle of all this.”

“I wish I was more like you,” Alison blurts out.

“Really? And give up this basement? Come on.”

 Beth’s teasing smile is brighter and whiter than Alison expected.

_Is that what I look like too?_

“I mean,” Alison says, shaking her head. “I wish I could defend myself like you. Defend my children, I mean. They deserve better. They deserve to be safe from all this.”

Beth’s smile turns gentle. “They look pretty safe to me.”

“Khakis and ribbons and hot lunches,” says Alison, throwing up her hands. “That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“I wish I could find the guy who’s killing us off, and shoot him point-blank in the face,” Alison says, her voice louder than she intended it to be. “With a _gun_. Like yours.”

Beth sits back and does that eyebrow-raising thing again. She stays quiet for a moment, her eyes studying Alison in her pink tracksuit jacket.

“All right,” she says finally. “I can understand that.”

Leaning forward, she adds, “You know, I can teach you if you want.” Her collarbones shift under the oval neckline of her dress, with the fabric tenting slightly. “I could teach you to shoot a gun.”

Alison leans forward too. “I’d like that.”

“We don’t have time today, not if you really want to learn. But I can book us some time on the range.”

“Thank you.”

And she means it, too.

It will look a little weird— two identical women, firing police-grade weapons into the wilderness, but this is her life now, and Alison finds she doesn't mind that image of Beth, and their strange connection, the way she would mind the others.

“You’ll have to actually buy go out and one,” Beth warns her.

Alison waves a hand. “Not a problem. I know just the guy.”

Beth raises another eyebrow at that, but she doesn't ask, and Alison is glad about that. Beth is still a cop after all, and Alison has already sacrificed too much. She can’t lose her dealer too.

“You’ll be a natural at it. Good posture.”

“You think?”

Alison feels oddly flattered.

“Yep, definitely. Somebody taught you to sit up straight somewhere along the way.”  

In demonstration, Beth glides toward Alison, and taking Alison’s hands in hers, arranges her arms into the firing position.

“It was my mother,” Alison says, softly. “Sit like a lady, or sit like a lumberjack, she used to say.”

Beth’s skin on hers is strange, frightening in its similarity, but smooth and electric. It feels familiar, calling up everything she likes at once. Hands outstretched, bodies mirroring, this could almost be the start of a waltz.

It reminds her of sewing, the way their hands fit together like stitches.

“I had a mother like that too,” says Beth, turning to face Alison. “Weird. It’s almost like we’re the same person.”

Alison laughs, a snort escaping her nose. Horrified, she covers her mouth with her hand.

“I’m sorry, it’s just—”

“—it’s ridiculous,” Beth finishes for her, dropping out of their firing pose. “I know. You’re dealing with it better than most people would.”

“I am?”

“There’s no instruction manual for this,” Beth says. “Even though I keep asking Cosima to look at our DNA to see if we have one.”

“It’s neat, in some ways. I guess. I never had a sister,” Alison found herself saying. “Or even… women to talk to, I guess. You wouldn't think so, but all the women around here are horrible bitches.”

Beth snorts. “Of course they are. It’s suburbia. I don’t know how you do it, I’d never last.”

“You can come to our next potluck if you want—”

“No thanks. Don't want to ruin your image.”

“No, you wouldn't,” says Alison, but she relents. She’s looking at Beth shyly from under her lashes. Staring, almost, but it’s hard not to stare at Beth like this, with her hair swept into a bun, dark doe eyes, hands stronger than they look.

It’s unnerving, to be so close to someone who’s exactly like you.

“In any case… I’m glad I met you.”

“Me too.”


End file.
